Her eyes were a storm-tossed sea, and her mouth was red and swollen. She looked thoroughly debauched as she nodded, and he liked her like that, like this, giving him permission to do what he pleased with her. As she watched him, he drew her skirts up her thighs until he reached her hips. Legs. Bare. Stockings then tantalising pale skin and between her legs, damp curls. His mouth was dry and his cock strained against his breeches, achingly hard, demanding he relieve it. With one hand, he cupped himself, squeezing almost viciously, while with the other, he spread her legs.
“You’ll like this.” His voice was low. The way she looked at him was a torment.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do . . .” She swallowed, a red blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks. “ShouldI—”
He leant over and kissed her chastely, softly. “I will enjoy this almost as much as you,” he said. “Believe me.”
Uncertainly, she nodded, and he placed himself between her legs. He wanted to taste her, but she had never been with a man before. First, he needed to accustom her to being touched intimately. Then—
No. He shut down the thought before it could take root. Touching her was all he would allow himself. But she could not touch him, not if he were to retain what little restraint he had left.
She shifted restlessly and he slid his palm along the soft skin of her inner thigh. As if in invitation, she spread her legs still wider, baring herself to him, and all thoughts left his head.
She was perfection. Even without touching her, he could see how wet she was, her folds slick with desire. When she shifted again, rolling her hips in impatience, he touched her where she needed. A gasping low moan escaped her, and he gripped himself still more tightly as he traced small circles around her sensitive nub. Already, she was ready for him, and that knowledge in itself was an agony.
He slid a finger inside her, kissing her inner thigh at her moan.
“What’s this?” she gasped, hips bucking. He added a second finger to the first, revelling in the delicious way she clenched around him. Hot, wet, and utterly inviting.
But he mustn’t.
“Quiet, sweetheart.”
Her head fell back as she bit her lip, stifling the cries he was drawing from her, and damn him to hell, if this wasn’t the most arousing sight he’d ever witnessed. None of the ladies he usually lay with, the experienced widows or the practised mistresses, had ever given themselves to him the way Annabelle did. Innocently, without guile.
To distract himself from the desperate, almost mindless urge to sink inside her, he kissed his way up her thigh to her damp curls.
“Jacob!” Annabelle half sat up again, eyes wide, her legs clamping around his head. “What are you—”
He looked up as he continued to work her with his fingers. “I want to use my mouth on you.”
“There?”
“Don’t look so scandalised, little bird. It’s not as uncommon as you might think.”
“And you’ll like it?” she asked doubtfully.
“There’s nothing I want more.”
Slowly, she nodded, an expression of mingled anticipation and suspicion and fear on her face, and he took that as an invitation to proceed.
If he had planned a seduction route for her, he would have gone about it differently. He would have made sure everything happened at its proper pace, possibly over several sessions. And he would categoricallynothave put his mouth on her the very first time they came together.
But there might not be another time. There was a slight uneasiness in his stomach at the thought and he pushed it to one side, letting himself focus exclusively on this. Messy, open licks and kisses. There was no finesse here; his reputation as an experienced lover was in tatters at his schoolboy enthusiasm, but the taste of her on his tongue was driving him wild. He would be remembering this for months to come, every time he took himself in hand. The smell of her, the taste, the way she tightened around his fingers as her climax drew closer, and the helpless, pitiful cries she gave past clenched teeth as she strove to be quiet.
He wasn’t entirely sure he would ever be able to stop.
He slowed as she reached the edge of climax, holding her there, teasing at the brink but never quite pushing her over.
“Jacob.” Her voice was breathy impatience, and the sound of it almost undid him.
He should never have kissed her; then he would never have known how addictive it was. Sweeter than wine, stronger than whisky.
“This is the sweetest moment,” he said, pulling back and meeting her gaze. “Savour it.”
